The present invention relates to food products and to their methods of preparation. More particular, the present invention relates to intermediate moisture food products especially dried fruit based food products and to their methods of preparation.
Wholesome snacks prepared from sweetened intermediate moisture shelf stable fruit or “fruit snacks” herein have recently become popular food items. These compositions are sold in various physical forms and shapes such as: 1) in rolled sheet form; 2) in rolled strip form; 3) in string form mounted on a U-board; 4) soft center filled pieces, and 5) in gelled bite size pieces of various shapes or in gelled bite size piece form prepared by starch molding. The products are typically packaged in a moisture impermeable container such as flexible laminated film pouch fabricated to include a moisture barrier layer.
In other variations, all or a portion of the fruit material is substituted with pure sugars. Such low fruit, high sugar formulations can be flavored with fruit flavors and/or other flavors. Within this general similarity, however, the particular methods of preparation, product formulations and apparatus used to prepare particular products vary considerably. Moreover, such variations are highly interdependent. Formulations and method steps suitable for one product form might or might not be suitable for another product form.
Particularly popular products are in rolled sheet form such as are sold under the Fruit Roll-Ups brand. Popular products rolled strip form are sold under the Fruit By The Foot brand (see also, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,455,053 entitled “Rolled Food Item” issued Oct. 3, 1995). Food products in string form mounted on a U-board are sold under the String Thing® mark while other products in bite size pieces of various shapes are sold under various brands. (See, for example, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,942,268 entitled “Embossed Shape Food Item” issued Aug. 24, 1999 to Zimmermann et al.). Soft center filled pieces products are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,853,236 entitled “Dual Textured Food Piece Of Enhanced Stability Using An Oil In Water Emulsion” (issued Mar. 18, 1988 to Langler et al.). While apparatus and fabrication methods therefor are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,059 entitled “Dual Textured Food Piece Fabrication Apparatus” (issued Jun. 10, 1992 to Dubowik et al.).
These dried fruit products are especially popular with children, particularly as snack or convenience foods. To continue to appeal to children, manufacturers must introduce frequent changes to such products. For example, the shapes of the products can be changed to employ currently popular character-shapes such as from a movie, television show, cartoons, etc. Also, such products can be fortified with vitamins and minerals, especially calcium for growing children.
Broadly, these products are prepared from wet mixtures of the various fruit materials and added ingredients with extra water, cooked and worked at elevated temperatures and dried with heat or vacuum or a combination of the two to desired moisture contents to form hot plastic paste or fluid formable fruit masses. The formable fruit masses are then formed into articles of desired shapes and sizes. The present invention is directed toward improvements in the methods of preparation of the hot plastic paste or fluid formable fruit masses that can then be formed into various suitable shaped and sized pieces.
While the present invention can be used in connection with various such firm intermediate moisture products such as gelled fruit based confections (i.e., those with sufficient gel strength to retain their shape without need for supplemental support or self supporting), the invention is particularly addressed to pliable film intermediate moisture fruit solid products in the rolled sheet form or in the rolled strip form that are typically supported on a removable backing paper or other packaging support structure to retain their shape.
Generally, prior methods of preparation involve preparing wet mixtures of the sweetened fruit ingredients that range from about 55-75° Brix (i.e., about 55%-75% solids) and which are then dried to near finish moisture values of about 83-93° Brix before being formed into sized and shaped pieces. The wet mixtures are made with additional moisture for good reasons such as to facilitate hydration (and thus functionality) of the (expensive) thickening agents, facilitate physical mixing and facilitate homogenous blending of component ingredients.
However, removal of the excess moisture unfortunately requires additional process steps and requires employment of extra pipes, pumps, vessels and drying equipment leading to bottlenecks in production as well as increases in both capital and operating (e.g., utilities such as steam) costs. Such extra cost concerns are especially important in establishing these types of products in many emergent market countries. Also, with increasing import competition from low cost countries, the need for reduced cost technologies for the production of these types of products in industrialized countries is great.
Also, the need for finish-drying burdens product fortification. Many vitamins are heat sensitive and degrade during the drying step. Mineral fortification especially with calcium is difficult due to the scaling problems on the drying equipment from common calcium fortification ingredients.
In view of the current state of the intermediate moisture food art, there is a continuing need for new and improved formulations and methods for preparing intermediate moisture shaped food products.
The present invention satisfies this need by providing intermediate compositions and methods for preparing such fruit products that require no or minimal finish drying and thus reduced manufacturing costs. In part, the present invention involves providing a hot viscous sweetened fruit fluid or slurry of increased solids intermediate product that nonetheless has lower or comparable viscosities that allows for successful forming into shaped intermediate moisture food products especially in film form.
In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide methods for preparing fortified sweetened intermediate moisture fruit compositions.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide high solids content gellable food slurry product intermediates useful in the preparation of intermediate moisture food products.
It has been surprisingly discovered that the above objectives can be realized and superior sweetened fruit products provided by formulating compositions, comprising: nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners especially those provided by fruit solids, bulking agent (s), and moisture. The present invention further provides novel methods of preparation of such products involving characterized by reduced or no drying times.